Thursday, February 25, 2010

In decisions issued on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Court ruled that confessions should be admitted at trial even when police interviewed suspects in circumstances that lower courts viewed as Miranda violations.

The Court on Wednesday issued Maryland v. Shatzer (pdf), establishing new, more permissive rules for police who want to question a suspect for a second time after the suspect invokes Miranda's right to remain silent.

The Maryland case came down a day after the justices decided Florida v. Powell (pdf), in which a 7-2 majority Court said that Florida's alternative wording of the Miranda warning is acceptable, even though it does not explicitly state that a suspect has a right to have a lawyer present during questioning.

The idea of "once Mirandized, always Mirandized" was insane to begin with. And any expression of the Miranda warnings that gets the point across shouldn't be thrown out just because it doesn't follow Joe Friday's exact wording.

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Endorsements! (Idea Stolen from Dana)

"She’s that sad creature called the sister punisher/colluder---a woman who hopes that if she hates women even more than the men in her life, she gets to be “better” than other women. A fool, in other words, unaware that the sexist men she loves so much think she’s a joke." -- Amanda Marcotte

"You really are one of the biggest pricks I've encountered on the web" -- Jeromy Brown

"You’re a cartoon caricature of the Limbaugh ditto-head" --Mike G

"You are a sadist, a fool, *and* a liar" -- Phoenicians in the Time of Romans

"Yours is the mark of an absolutist who is never wrong, always right" -- Perry